April 20, 2024
The Widow
“The earth out of stone, the rose out of earth, Are strange things,” she suddenly said; “A rose in bloom is a strange thing.” “There are stranger things than that, […]
April 20, 2024
A Reason for Writing
No word that is not flesh, he said, Can hold my wavering ear; but when The golden physical flesh is dear, I dance in a glory like your glory With […]
April 20, 2024
Two of a Kind
The personal man looked up and said, “This moon revolves for me.” The general man looked up and said, “Once in this dust I’m free.” The personal man and the […]
October 1, 1982
The Barge
The river was not much wider than an ordinary street, Placid, waiting almost sexually to be penetrated: The ferns, the flowers, somewhere not far off, the maidenhead. I had put […]
October 1, 1982
Blue Snapper Blues
It has mainly been the red and silver that I choose. In the fish shop there they were, flamboyant, argentine— Quite some time before I knew there was a fish […]
October 1, 1982
The Hammer Thrower
One wants some gold paint, oil for enfleurage,The flowers leaching their pervasive smell,A spattered, highly scented mixing-place—Of course it would be better if sunlightGilded the nude in the studio corner,The […]
January 1, 1982
Winter Smoke
white manes of wild light behind the black branches of the dying elms that line the street, withered like amputated limbs that have been stuck in the ground so someone […]
January 1, 1982
Snow
They are making the world all over.This time there is the furred breath of snow.It is silent forever, now, in the new world.Silent and calm and falling whitely.The snow is […]
January 1, 1982
On My Birthday
If I want, I can read a novel from beginning to end without interruption. It's my day and if I want to spend all afternoon on the lawnchair, trailing slowly […]
July 1, 1981
Every Day Something Different
Translated from Hungarian. It’s people like ourselves we seek, one at a time. People like ourselves simply don’t exist, I say. Like I was preparing to issue an order: […]
July 1, 1981
Instead of a Flag
Translated from Hungarian. The one who says dear not only to girls— but to woman-maned landscape, black-ribbon wreathed houses, homeland farms. The one who can say my people, my […]
July 1, 1981
Ballad of When the Going’s Rough
Translated from Hungarian. Approved, the irregular going by regulations, approved, the permitting of disobedience, rubber-stamping each other, then the real carnival will be us: we’ll drop in, bringing festival to […]